Joseph Nevadomsky

Kingship Succession Rituals in Benin. 3: The Coronation of the Oba

As the eldest son of the late Oba, Prince Akenzua had earlier been invested as the Edaiken of Benin (see Part 1 of this series, November 1983), a title that officially acknowledged his right to the throne. As Edaiken, or Crown Prince, he ruled over Uselu, a community outside Benin City that in almost every way replicated in extreme miniature the one he would inherit as king. During his apprenticeship the Edaiken learned the elusive art of statecraft, and he was also ritually strengthened to take on the burdens that lay ahead of him. It was during his tenure at Uselu that he also performed the funeral obsequies for his father, the late Oba Akenzua II (see Part 2, February 1984), thus opening the way for his coronation in March 1979 as Erediauwa, thirty-eighth Oba of Benin.

Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Recursive Practices and Historical Consciousness among Brass–Casters in Benin City

Insights from fractal analysis applied to cultural anthropology are important in reconsidering the contemporary placement of brass-casting in Benin City, Nigeria. The former heart of the Benin Kingdom, Benin City is renowned for producing superb brass-castings and ivory carvings from the 14th to 19th century unlike anything else in sub-Saharan Africa. Benin City’s caster-artists continue to produce artworks in traditional styles, including reproductions, and have introduced innovative new works, often not far removed from earlier styles. Unfortunately, art historians became so focused on the classical corpus after a British Punitive Expedition conquered the kingdom in 1897 that they ignored 20th century productions, relegating them to an historical dustbin of debased artifacts. A reframing of 20th century castings using fractal concepts from geometry allows us to recover some of that past, and to provide a clearer recognition of the importance of contemporary castings as inspired recreations of traditional motifs and reflections of cultural memory through casting patrimony. Vergangenheitswbewältigung—coming to terms with the past—is a vital German word, and an essential working through history. The contrasts between the attitudes of Benin’s local brasscasters and those of the academy illustrate how each comes to terms with the past. Art historians of Benin brass-casting stop at a spot of linearity and by defining it as a cut-off locate that past chronologically, in a moment of time, employing it as a magical determination. Benin’s casters see the past as a mode of inspiration, even exploration, perhaps imitation, ignoring borders and easily crossing domains of time. Striving to be a Benin brass caster in the 21st century requires some serious consciousness. It requires casters to have practical technical experience, and, in addition to their own individualities that include talent and personal VErGanGEnhEitsbEwältiGunG: rEcursiVE PracticEs and historical consciousnEss amonG brass-castErs in bEnin city

Iconoclash or Iconoconstrain: Truth and Consequence in Contemporary Benin B®and Brass Castings

In his introduction to the exhibition catalogue Iconoclash Bruno Latour (2002) questions the (art) historical narrative of modernity and turns it into a matter of doubt. What happens, he asks, if iconoclasm is not a definite dividing line between those who commit the hideous act of breaking images and those who don’t? What if we are all iconoclasts and what if we only differ by the motives and attitudes we have towards images?1 Fiddling with Latour’s questions allows for a blast of fresh air into the study of Benin art, especially for gauging the extension of the boundaries of traditional brass-casting in the onceupon-a-time or forever-and-a-day Benin kingdom. Here I look at Latour’s questions as they relate to Benin’s brass-casting over the past hundred years. I argue that both the Benin palace and Western art historical scholarship indulges in iconoclastic gestures. Just as art historians think of 1897, the year British troops looted the Benin palace and deprived the kingdom of many of its artifacts, as a date which has changed artistic productions once and forever (the conceit of a pre-1897 art heritage and a post1897 kitsch consequence) the palace focuses on 1897 in order to brand Benin art as an eternal reference to the past/heritage and to justify demands of repatriation. The removal of palace objects after the punitive event made the date real and artificial, historically accurate and art historically strategic, at the same time. The documented barricade disarticulates the post-1897 production of cast objects from pre1897 castings, creating a dichotomy between categorizations— Euro-American aesthetics and art trade vs. Benin civic efficacies and power memory objects—and in the end constitutes an intellectual dissociation. The date disenfranchises twentieth century Benin castings at the same time that it adds substantial worth to pre-boundary objects. One has somehow to deconstruct the border crossing between classical Benin art and contemporary Benin art as exemplified by the temporal cutoff. The difference in merit/value between an object made in the 1890s and, say, another made ca. 1900–1920 is in the perception of the commodity as dictated by the date. Scavenging canonical castings result in few pickings these days, and a change in the academic weather makes a paradigm shift likely. Ironically, now that the twenty-first century is here, art historians are researching twentieth century Benin cast objects, true to their calling.2 As one examines twentieth century brass-casting, the absence of documentation is striking. Not until the latter decades of that century has attention turned to acknowledging the production of one hundred years, such as Philip Dark’s An Introduction to Benin Art and Technology (1973), but even here the study of casting techniques sought data not to examine twentieth century objects, but to understand the classical corpus, as in Dark’s earlier Benin Art (1969). It raises, Sylvester Ogbechie says, “the issue of how to theorize Edo-Benin art in the era after the end of its ‘history’” (2007). The cultural contours of Benin City in landscape, ideology, hierarchy, and social formations have also infected art historical interests in directing the studies of classical sculptural production in the Ẹdo (Bini) Kingdom of Benin to acquisitions removed from the palace in 1897. An art historical myopia inci-

The Vigango Affair: The Enterprise of Repatriating Mijikenda Memorial Figures to Kenya

| african arts SUMMER 2018 VOL. 51, NO. 2 Joseph Nevadomsky is the California State University, Fullerton 2000 H&SS Distinguished Professor. He has also taught at the University of Lagos, University of Benin, UCLA, USC, and the University of Zimbabwe. His focus is on Benin kingship rituals, brass-casting, prehistory, and palace architecture. jnevadomsky@fullerton.edu The Vigango Affair The Enterprise of Repatriating Mijikenda Memorial Figures to Kenya

Photographic Representations of the Oba in the Contemporary Art of the Benin Kingdom

How did photography affect artistic creativity and representations of the Oba (king) in relation to brass casting in the Benin kingdom? One of the great artistic achievements of Africa, Benin kingd...